WIP Wednesdays

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Introspection on WIP Wednesday

 

I try to write characters with side-kicks so they have someone to talk to. My hero of Unkept Promises has no-one for most of the novel, so readers need to see inside his head. ‘Show, don’t tell,’ they say, but don’t you sometimes find that your hero, heroine, or even villain is all alone and you need the reader to know what they’re thinking? Share me an excerpt with some introspection. Here’s a bit of mine, from Unkept Promises.

The house had been sold, the remaining servants had all taken positions elsewhere, so Jules was bunking down in the spare room at a friend’s place. He was sailing soon, and perhaps would never return. The navy wanted him in the Bay of Biscay: him and his ship. When the war was over, he’d retire. He had been at sea, man and boy, for nearly twenty years, and what he’d said to Mia had been echoing ever since. Once the war was over, the Navy would offer little chance for advancement. They’d have more captains than ships, and he had never been willing to use his family connections to edge out men as well qualified as him and perhaps in greater need.

Besides, he had a family. He wanted to build a home with them, see his children grow, wake up to his wife’s welcoming smile.

The cemetery was his last stop before he sailed. He stood before Kirana’s grave, the flowers someone had left long wilted on the mound of still raw earth. The tombstone he and Mia had planned was not yet in place, but he could see it in his mind’s eye. “Here lies Kirana Redepenning, devoted mother and friend. Taken from us far too soon, she will always be in the hearts of Julius, Euronyme, Perdana, Marshanda and Adiratna.”

“I will look after them, Kirana,” he promised. “They will want for nothing.”

 

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Character sketches on WIP Wednesday

Young Dreamer Imagining a Fantasy World with Imaginary Characters

Different people work different ways. I often start with a plot idea; maybe work it up a little into a story idea. But at some point, usually very early on in the process, I get down to imagine character, because my characters always drive my plot. Their decisions make all the difference in what happens, so I need to know them before I start writing.

I’m at that stage with two books now that I’m in second draft mode on Unkept Promises and To Win a Lady. I’ve started with character sketches, which I’ll then — for the main protagonists — work  up into a proper hero’s journey. I’ll also begin a character questionnaire, and I’ll continue to add to that as I write the story, referring back during editing to make sure eyes don’t change colour and people don’t age ten years overnight.

Whatever your process, can you share some of it with us — something about one of the characters currently occupying your author brain?

Today, I’m giving you part of a character sketch for a character in the Belle’s next project, tentatively titled ‘Come What Will’. All the authors in the box set will set their stories on the same island, so we had some shared characters to invent. Mine is a shady fellow.

Cuthbert Howarth was the sole servant that Jacob Brokenshire kept from his illegal enterprises, and that out of guilt more than affection.

The Howarths had been involved in the Brokenshire smuggling enterprise from the first. Josiah had supplied the money that came to him on his marriage, but Mordecai Howarth had supplied the know-how. They were never equal partners; Josiah was always the owner and in charge. But the Howarths regarded themselves as partners, and always assumed they would one day inherit the business, since Josiah and Jacob showed no signs of producing heirs of their own.

Smuggling is not a safe enterprise. Over the years, the Howarth ranks were thinned almost as much as the Brokenshire’s, as those taking the front-line risks fell prey to storms, excise men, and other dangers of the sea.

Cuthbert was left orphaned at age 13, in 1788, when his father was hanged and his mother died, purportedly of a broken heart. A club foot meant he never went to sea like the other men of his family. Instead, he worked on the administration side of the business.

When Jacob shut down the illegal enterprises and sold the legal ones, Cuthbert begged to stay with him, and became his butler, manservant, and general factotum.

In his spare time, he has searched every corner of the island. The fortune that Jacob has amassed, and that Cuthbert believes should be his, is either hidden so well that he could not find it, or it is elsewhere.

He has also, in a small way, kept up the smuggling, unbeknownst to Jacob, focussing on high-value items such as information.

Cuthbert is a skinny man of 42, very tall and prematurely bent, with rusty brown hair thinning on the back of the head. His eyes are green. His nose is large and shows signs of having once been broken. He walks with a limp, particularly when he hurries, but otherwise does not suffer from his infirmity.

He regards everyone on the island as interlopers and potential thieves, but hides this behind a supercilious air.

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What could possibly go wrong? on WIP Wednesday

This, my friends, is a jack knife — a useful sailor’s tool.

 

My favourite question when writing is ‘what could possibly go wrong’? And then I make it happen. This week, I’m talking about those defining points where the story takes a twist to make things worse. Share me yours in the comments. Mine comes from a scene I wrote this morning in Unkept Promises. Lady Carrington, who you may remember as the villainess if you’ve read Farewell to Kindness, has a position with the French spy agencies. She has persuaded Murat, her spymaster, to let her return to England to fetch the fortune she was forced to abandon when her husband decided to get rid of her at the end of Farewell to Kindness. To help her get to her hiding place safely, she takes Jules Redepenning, my hero, who is a prisoner of war after being pushed off his ship by someone in the pay of the man who wants to abduct his son. (It makes sense in the book, I promise. And, after all, what could possibly go wrong? Right?

Though the sky was clear and the moon full, still, everything was grey on grey, and in the shadows, it was black as Lady Carrington’s heart.

“We will need transport,” Jules pointed out.

Lydia smirked. A moment later, a man leading a horse turned a corner further along the lane and began walking towards them. Four more horses followed behind, all strung together.

“Tha be the ’uns for these ’ere ’orses?” he asked, his eyes a suspicious squint as he looked from one man to another, ignoring Lydia, until she stepped towards him and held out a pouch.

“Your next payment,” she told him. “As promised, the third will be ready for you tomorrow night, when we return the horses. We will leave on the high tide, whether you are here or not.”

The man touched his cap; a response to her cultured tones. “I be here,” he said, his sourness not abated by the purse he weighed thoughtfully in one hand. “See that tha be.”

He disappeared back into the gloom, and Lydia ordered the disposition of the horses. Jules was ordered to take position between the two French officers, his horse on leading reins. Lydia led the fifth horse, which had been supplied with a pack saddle and paniers.

“If you lead us into a trap, Julius,” the Baroness said, “Pierre will shoot you without blinking.”

“You have my word,” Jules told her indignantly. After all, she was not privy to his inner justifications for abandoning her. “However, I cannot lead you tell you tell me where we are going.”

“Iron Acton will do for a start,” Lydia said. Iron Acton was five miles from Chipping Niddwick. Further confirmation that Lydia’s stash was hidden at the Carrington Castle, or nearby.

“I take it you want to avoid villages and farm dwellings. Very well. If we head south on this lane,” he pointed the direction he meant, “we will come to a turn inland in about seventy-five yards.”

Lydia nodded at his two escorts, and they wheeled their horses to follow his directions. There had never been any doubt about who was in charge.

He kept them to lanes that avoided the villages and towns. Little used except for stock movements and farm carts, they were mostly in poor repair, and recent rain had frozen in every rut and hollow, so that their way was marked by the crackle of breaking ice. Going was slow. From Iron Acton, the Baroness directed them toward Highwayman’s Hollow, a place just off the Yate to Chipping Niddwick road where, or so local legend had it, highwaymen used to lurk, waiting for a rich prize.

“We shall take a rest,” the Baroness announced, dismounting. Jules and the two silent Frenchmen followed her example. She beckoned the three of them. “Come closer so we can talk without me shouting.”

Sound did carry in the night air. Still, Jules thought she was being too cautious. Unless things had changed since he was last here, there wasn’t a dwelling anywhere within ten minutes’ walk.

Nevertheless, he joined the group, ready to hear their next destination. He wasn’t ready to be seized by Pierre and Victor, one on each side. He struggled, but he was soon bound to a tree and gagged for good measure.

“I know the way from here,” the Baroness told him. She caressed his cheek, a parody of affection. “I cannot trust you near people who might help you. We will be back, Julius, and you shall see us to the coast as you promised, and then I shall release you as I promised.”

Unable to comment, Jules merely glared. The Baroness laughed, and leaned towards him her lips puckered. He twisted his face, so that the kiss fell on his ear rather than his lips. She laughed again, and groped at his fall. “He is hardly a man at all,” she told her French lovers. “Such a disappointment. One expected better of a Redepenning.”

Jules raised a sardonic eyebrow. Lydia tipped her nose in the air and walked away to remount her horse. Pierre followed, and then Victor but only after a vicious punch to Jules’s stomach. “That is for disrespecting madame,” he hissed.

Jules had no choice but to keep his response to himself. He gave the Baroness precisely the respect she deserved. Probably as well he couldn’t speak. Another couple of blows like that, and he’d be in real trouble.

He watched them ride away before testing his bonds. Good. They’d left enough play for him to work with, and the jack knife he’d stolen on the ship was still concealed in his sleeve. He sneered after them. No sailor would have made such a mistake.

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Haunted by the past on WIP Wednesday

Our heroes and heroines need a past, and in my kind of book, something about that past needs to still bother them.

I love stories where we get an early glimpse of this vulnerability, without lengthy backstory, then more and more comes out as the story unwinds. I was at a crime and thriller conference last weekend, and on a panel with Kirsten McKenzie, whose horror/crime story Painted does this to beautiful effect for both the horror and the crime plot threads. I didn’t finish the book until the trip home, and the others on the panel were all trying to discuss the history that motivated the key characters without giving away the key points. (Sorry, folks.)

Sometimes, readers of a series know at least some of what tears at the hero’s heart or the heroine’s, but we don’t know about the wounds of the other protagonist. Charles, in Caroline Warfield’s Children of Empire has kept his dignity despite his estranged wife’s lies and betrayals. We know this because those lies also hurt Charles’s cousins, each of whom stars in one of the previous two books. We learn more, and from Charles’s POV, but we also need to find out what drives Zambak to the other side of the world, where she and Charles will have to deal with their separate pasts as well as the budding Opium Wars, Zambak’s brother, a callous villain, and small-minded local society.

I could go on — in my favourite books, people all have pasts, and an important part of the story is them coming to terms with who they are because of that past.

This week, I’m asking you to share a passage where your characters share part of their past. It could be highly significant, like the books I’ve mentioned above, or it could be something quite minor. Mine is from To Win a Proper Lady: The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, which I’m rewriting as a novellisation of the novella I wrote for Holly and Hopeful Hearts. In this passage, I hint at a backstory that won’t become clear until book three of the series. Hint. The heroine of To Tame the Wicked Rake: The Saint and the Sinner, is Charlotte Winderfield. The hero is Aldridge.

Charlotte indicated the closed bedchamber door with an inclination of her head. “I take it Grandfather has heard that the Duke of Haverford has run mad,” she said.

“Mad like a fox,” James answered. “He has given up on the claim that my father is not the son His Grace of Winshire lost so many years ago. With our esteemed progenitor and Aunt Georgie both recognising him, that was a lost cause. He thinks to convince his peers that they don’t want half breeds living among them, dancing and worse with their daughters. It will be a simple thing, he thinks, to prove my parent’s marriage a fiction, and all of their children barred from my grandfather’s title.”

“Take a seat, James, and don’t loom over me. You don’t think it will be a simple thing?”

James obeyed, lowering himself into the chair opposite hers. “I think the man a fool for underestimating the King of the Mountains. You have heard our grandsire’s solution for swaying opinion our way?”

She had, of course. That was clear from the way she examined his face before she spoke; a considering look, as if wondering how much to trust him. “It is a good idea for you to marry an English girl with impeccable bloodlines.” With a snap, she closed the open book that was sitting on her knee. “That girl will not be me, James. I mean no offence, but I will not marry you, whatever Grandfather might say. I do not intend to wed, ever.”

“Thank you for telling me. Perhaps, you would be kind enough to help me find a bride that will fit the duke’s requirements and my own?”

“And what might your requirements be?” Charlotte asked.

“Someone I could grow to love. Someone who could be my friend and partner, as well as my wife.”

“You are a romantic, cousin. I warn you, Haverford is powerful. He will make it hard to find a girl from the right family who will accept you, despite our family’s name and your father’s wealth. Finding one who is your match may be impossible.”

James looked down at his hands. If she thought him romantic, she would be certain of it in the next moment. “Perhaps I have found her already. What can you tell me of Lady Sophia Belvoir?”

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Parenting on WIP Wednesday

This is my idea of how Marshanda Redepenning might look.

I like to have children in my stories, which means one or more of my characters are parents — and all of my characters have had parents (many still do). In today’s post, I’m asking for comments with excerpts that are somehow to do with parenting. It might be a secondary character or a main protagonist; parenting in action or thinking about the actions of a parent; the character as parent or the character as child.

In the excerpt I have today, from Unkept Promises, Mia sees her husband with his children by his mistress. Backstory: they married many years ago, when she was still a school child, for the sake of her reputation, and he sailed straight away for the Far East to return to his mistress, Kirana, and their children. Kirana and Mia became friends by correspondence, and Jules has just arrived home from a sea voyage to find that Mia has been in his house for a week and has taken over running it.

Adarinta suddenly remembered that Jules had not yet disgorged his gifts. “Where are my…” she broke off, sneaking a glance at Hannah, who had been impressing the little girls with the unexpected information that they were ladies. Marshanda stuck her nose in the air. “Ladies,” she informed her sister, “do not ask. Ladies wait to be offered.”

Jules frown over her head at Mia. “Who has been telling you that?” he asked.

Adarinta, however, was not to be deflected. “I like presents,” she announced. “It makes me very happy when people give me a present. Ibu Mia brought presents for me and Marsha. I expect she brought presents for you, too, Dan. I do like presents.”

Faced with this flagrant attempt to get around the ‘ladies do not ask’ rule, the adults were struggling to maintain their gravity. Even Jules, who was holding onto whatever grudge had blown in with him, couldn’t resist a twinkle. “I happen to have some presents,” he commented.

Adarinta, climbing off his knee, stood before him, her hands clasped before her, her wide eyes pleading. “Oh Papa,” she pleaded, then looked back at Hannah again and chewed thoughtfully at her upper lip. Her eyes lit, and she said, “I have been very good, Papa, have I not, Hannah?” Then added mournfully, “Not as good as Marsha.”

“Dan, would you fetch my duffel?” Jules asked his son, shifting slightly to allow the boy to pass.

“Perhaps, you might take your father up to the nursery, young ladies?” Mia suggested. “Hannah could bring you up some scones. I am sure your father would like a scone his daughters have made.”

Jules, who had his mouth open — Mia was certain — to repudiate the suggestion, shut it again.

“Oh yes, Papa. Come and see.” Marshanda took one of Jules’s hands, and Adarinta, not to be left behind, took the other. “Hannah made us some curtains, Papa. And Ibu Mia bought us a table and chairs to do our schoolwork. I can read, Papa. Truly.”

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Rough drafts on WIP Wednesday

My writing has speeded up marvellously since I learned a simple trick. If there’s something I don’t know, or a sequence I can’t quite visualise, I make a note and move on.

Below, I’ve included an excerpt from Unkept Promises, the next Redepenning novel, full of notes to myself

How about you? What do you do in your rough drafts, and are you game to post an example in the comments?

Fortune and Hannah met them at the dock gates with the break, a large open carriage capable of taking the entire family along the coast to eat the picnic that was undoubtedly in the covered baskets Jules could see tucked under the seats.

[check where a picnic might take place. During drive, Jules abstracted, thinking about what the girls and Mia have told him. Dan pointing out all the different types of ship in the harbour, where they might have come from and be going, and what they were good for. Girls asking questions until he gets to one he can’t answer and askes Jules who shakes off his mood and attends.]

Hannah and Mia set the picnic up in the shade of a tree [rock?? Pavilion they brought with them???] and soon they were all enjoying [etc. Not sure what I want to do with this part of the scene. Girls need to ask politely to be allowed to leave the …. blanket? ]

[Hannah produces a ball, suggests a game. Girls against boys. Dan scathing about the girls’ likely ability.]

“Could we sit this one out?” Jules asked Mia. “I’d like for us to talk, if you do not mind.”

“Of course,” Mia said. “Hannah, you and the others go ahead.”

In moments, the game was underway, Hannah and the girls against Fortune and Dan. Dan’s confidence took a swift knock when Fortune failed to catch the ball Dan had thrown and Marsha raced in front of him and kicked it to Hannah, who in her turn kicked it between the rocks they had marked as the girl’s goal.

He rallied, though, and the next round of play saw him sneaking the ball from under Marsha’s nose and kicking his own goal.

“This will do the girls a world of good,” Mia decided. “I have not wanted to venture beyond the boundaries of town without an escort, and there is no where there they can run and romp like this without censure from the biddies.”

“You are determined to turn them into English gentlewomen.” Jules tried to keep the censure from his voice. He would allow his unaccountable wife her chance to make her case, but what the hell was she thinking?

“I am determined to make sure they know Society’s expectations,” Mia corrected. “I know how it feels to be at sea, knowing that something you have done has drawn disapprobation, but having no idea what it is or how to correct it. I will not leave them as ill prepared as I was.”

What had happened to Mia to fuel the vehemence of her tone? He supposed he understood. The child he’d met in the smuggler’s cave had been raised by a reclusive scholar — or had raised herself while ignored by her father.

“I thought my father and Susan would look out for you,” he said. They should have. He had trusted them to do so.

“It was not their fault, Captain.” Mia smiled, and reached out as if to pat his hand where it rested be-side hers on the blanket. If that was her intent, she thought better of it and instead folded it in her lap with its counterpart. “They are part of Society. They grew up knowing all the habits of courtesy your kind take for granted, and all your silly little rituals. It never occurred to them that I was as ignorant of what to them seemed natural behaviour. They were always there to tell me what I had done wrong, and they tried to predict my next mistake and prevent it — but I made so many!” The last was said with a laugh, but Jules could sense pain beneath it, and his heart ached for the little girl he had abandoned.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I had no idea.”

“I will not have that happen to Marshanda and Adarinta.

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Scars on WIP Wednesday

My next story to be released has a hero with a scarred face, and I’ve been contemplating the number of my books that include a character with a physical deformity. I have quite a few scarred heroes — echoes of the Beauty and the Beast trope.

In every story where such a character appears, I have to consider the scars as part of what drives the story. How is my character affected by their scars, the cause of their scars, and the impact on others of their scars?

So that’s my theme for today. The scar might be internal or external, and belong to any person in the story. Give me an excerpt, in the comments, that describes your character or one of those effects.

My excerpt is from The Beast Next Door, my Valentines from Bath story. Valentines of Bath is the next Belles’ box set, due out on 9 February.

How beautiful she had grown. The men of Bath must all be married or blind. Her wide blue eyes narrowed, and then she smiled and held her hands up as if she would fetch him down through the window. “Eric? Eric, is it really you?”
Ugo gave an amiable bark and wagged his tail, then collapsed onto the grass at Charis’s feet. She frowned again, looking from the dog to its master. “He is yours? Oh, but he has been here for weeks. Eric, have you been hiding from me?”
“I did not want to scare you, Charis. I never thought you would know me right away. But wait, I will come down.” No flinch. No fixing her eyes and then turning them away. It was as if the disfigured side of his face was no different than the side that bore a single long scar from a knife cut.
“Of course, I knew you,” she greeted him when he rounded the folly and approached the bench. “No one has eyes like yours, Eric. And no one calls me Charis except you. Here!” She backed to sit again on the bench, sweeping her gown to one side and patting the place beside her. “Come and sit with me and tell me everything you’ve done since last we could write. Oh, Eric, when Nanny died, I felt as if I had lost you both, and I can only imagine how you must have felt so far away from home! I am so sorry.”
Eric hesitated. Given a choice, he’d have sat on the other side, so she didn’t have to look at the mess the surgeons had made. Charis put her head to one side, her smile slipping a little, and he sat quickly before he made her uncertain of her welcome.
“I thought it was worse for you,” he told her, “stuck here and no one knowing or caring how important she was to us both.”

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Wounds on WIP Wednesday

Characters without character flaws and scars tend to be boring — the Mary Sues of literature, there not to drive the action but to be acted upon. I try not to write them, but that means I do spend a lot of time thinking about the emotional and psychological wounds that make my characters more than two-dimensional.

 In this week’s WIP Wednesday, I’m inviting you to post excerpts from your current work-in-progress that talk about a character’s wounds: physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual; obvious or hidden.

My piece is from The Beast Next Door, my novella for the Bluestocking Belles’ Valentine box set. My hero bears both internal and internal scars.

How beautiful she had grown. The men of Bath must all be married or blind. Her wide blue eyes narrowed, and then she smiled and held her hands up as if she would fetch him down through the window.“Eric? Eric, is it really you?”

Ugo gave an amiable bark and wagged his tail, then collapsed onto the grass at Charis’s feet. She frowned again,looking from the dog to its master. “He is yours? Oh, but he has been here for weeks. Eric, have you been hiding from me?”

“I did not want to scare you, Charis. I never thought you would know me right away. But wait, I will come down.” No flinch. No fixing her eyes and then turning them away. It was as if the disfigured side of his face was no different than the side that bore a single long scar from a knife cut.

“Of course, I knew you,” she greeted him when he rounded the folly and approached the bench. “No one has eyes like yours, Eric. And no one calls me Charis except you. Here!” She backed to sit again on the bench, sweeping her gown to one side and patting the place beside her. “Come and sit with me and tell me everything you’ve done since last we could write. Oh, Eric, when Nanny died, I felt as if I had lost you both, and I can only imagine how you must have felt so far away from home! I am so sorry.”

Eric hesitated. Given a choice, he’d have sat on the other side, so she didn’t have to look at the mess the surgeons had made. Charis put her head to one side, her smile slipping a little, and he sat quickly before he made her uncertain of her welcome.

“I thought it was worse for you,” he told her, “stuck here and no one knowing or caring how important she was to us both.”

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Courtship on WIP Wednesday

Those who write romances also write courtships. Before the happy ending, some sort of wooing has to happen, short or long, impassioned or almost accidental. Courtship between other characters or in other genres of story may have tragic endings or trickle out into nothing, but even so, we often see them. The pressure of a courtship is a gift to the writer, allowing us to show and develop character.

This week, I’m inviting writers to post an excerpt in the comments from a courtship in their current work in progress. Mine is from my short story written for the newsletter that will go out this week. My couple married when she was still a child, separated immediately after the wedding, and haven’t seen one another for years.

When he made his way to the church, he wore the gloves she had sent him last Christmas, the muffler she had knitted for the Christmas before. His pocket bore two of the handkerchiefs she’d embroidered with his new crest; beneath the muffler, a tie pin she’d given him fastened his cravat. He was one of the early arrivals. The manger, the seat for the Virgin Mother, and a couple of rails on posts stood lonely in the transom, waiting for the players. Word of who he was must have spread, however, for friendly villagers escorted him to a chair near the front of the nave, and a dozen people made the opportunity to stop by and tell him he had a wonderful wife.

The sheep came first, herded into place by the shepherd and his helpers. Then someone led out the cows and tethered them to one of the rails. A crowd of angels processed solemnly through the nave, hands in prayer position, heads bowed, eyes dancing. Finally, the moment Hal had been waiting for, Dolly led a donkey up the aisle, and Hal’s heart stopped at the sight of the woman on its back.

Dolly had been right. She was stunning. She was looking down, so he could see little of her face beyond a white forehead and dark brows and lashes. The blue shawl he’d chosen for her in Kowton was fixed to her head by a wreath of flowers, crafted in silver, that he’d found in Baghdad. The shawl flowed over her shoulders and down her sides, but it was so light it clung to a form that dried his mouth and brought his baser self to painful attention. He’d married before sowing any wild oats, and then kept his wedding vows, waiting to return home to Willa. The part of him he’d thought under perfect control wanted to wait not another minute longer.

Hal shut his eyes, and gritted his teeth, and once he knew he would not run roaring up the aisle to carry Willa off, he opened them again.

She had taken her seat in the transom, and was staring straight at him.

***

This was going to be a disaster. When she’d received Hal’s message, she had very nearly panicked. Only Eliza’s good sense kept her from taking a horse and riding away into the night. Instead, she had donned the veil that was part of her costume for the tableau, fastening it in place with a silver circlet he had sent her and putting on the matching necklace and earrings. Not, perhaps, appropriate for a carpenter’s wife, but the marquis’s wife wanted him to know she treasured his gifts.

She’d known who he was immediately, though he was at least six inches taller and considerably broader. The eyes hadn’t changed, though. Besides, he’d said he’d be there, and no one else was a stranger. He’d stared straight at her, then shut his eyes, his jaw stiffening, a grimace passing over his face. He hated her on sight. She wanted to run, but she wouldn’t spoil the tableau. She dismounted, as they’d rehearsed, and collected little Michael from Clara, and then took her seat before looking again at Hal.

He opened his eyes and her gaze was caught. Everyone else disappeared from her consciousness. Only Hal existed. Willa was inexperienced but not stupid. That was heat in his eyes. He desired her, and his desire sparked her own. She shifted uncomfortably, uncertain whether she liked the feeling Hal had set alight. The baby sucked in a deep breath and let it out again, and she looked down, feeling both relieved and bereft to be released from Hal’s thrall. She refused to look at him again until the tableau was over, though she could feel that the weight of his gaze never left her.

 

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Courtship on WIP Wednesday

If it’s a romance, or has a love story in it, it has courting. Before, after, or instead of the marriage, but somewhere. This week, how about an excerpt with a courting scene? Mine is from The Beast Next Door, my next novella. Charis and Eric have been meeting in secret; Charis because she thinks her mother won’t approve and Eric because he worries that Charis will reject him when she knows his secret. Charis has come to tell him she is going away, and he has been rubbing her cold hands to warm them.

Was embarrassment the source of the burning warmth that flooded her? No one ever touched her so firmly, so intimately. No one ever touched her, except her maid as required to unlace her stays or put up her hair, or perhaps her sisters when excitement caused them to forget decorum. How often she had wished that ladies could exchange the fond touches she’d observed in lesser families. A hug. A kiss to the cheek. Clasped hands.

Eric lifted her hand to his lips then placed it in her lap. “Better. Now for the other.” His voice was strained, as if he spoke through a stiff throat. Did he dislike touching her?

“Truly, I am fine,” she assured him. “You do not need to bother.”

“Bother?” He took the little glass from her hand and began removing the other glove. “This is not a bother.” He glanced up from the hand he was now massaging, a smile lurking at the corner of his lips. “I have been dreaming of touching you, Charis, and am grateful for an excuse.”

Something intent and hot in his eyes speared into Charis. She could not account for the way the warmth moved lower, to parts that a lady never mentioned and touched as little as possible, even when washing, but of a sudden the air seemed to disappear from the room. She inhaled sharply, and let the breath out on a sigh, casting about for something to say to loosen the strange tension. He had dreamed of touching her? How could she think when those words echoed in the chaotic scramble his caress had made of her brain?

Ah yes. Bath. “Mama has been given the loan of a house in Bath. We leave today, Eric, and I do not know how long we shall stay.” She had meant her voice to be brisk and matter-of-fact, but the last words came out on a wail, and all of a sudden she was enfolded in Eric’s arms.

“Dearest Charis.” He was rubbing her back with his hands, kissing the top of her head. For a moment she froze, then — almost without her volition — she wrapped her own arms around him and held on tight, pressing herself against his warmth.

“The others have been over the moon ever since Mama told us. We will miss nothing, they say. Every morning engagement. Staying late at all the assemblies. No more days off because of the rain.” The tragedy that suffused her voice was ridiculous. She was an unnatural female to so hate the activities the others so enjoyed, and it would only be until the end of the season.

Eric shifted, moving his lower torso so she was against his hip, but he didn’t put her away from him which gave her the courage to say, “No more visits with you.” To her horror, her voice warbled on the last word and she burst into tears.

“Ah Charis.” The rub changed to a soothing pat as she fought to contain herself. ‘Excessive displays of emotion are ill bred,’ Miss Middleton insisted, ‘and displeasing to men’, though Eric did not sound annoyed as he murmured, “Darling Charis. We will only be separated for a short time, and when I come back I shall have the right…” He trailed off.

She drew back the better to see his face. “The right?”